Meet the Nation's Most Underrated 2016 QB Prospect

David Moore likes to read horror novels in his spare time, which is fitting because his recruiting process has been a nightmare of complications thus far. 

However, Moore is determined to author a happy ending on the strength of a good junior season and sterling breakout performances on the spring camp circuit. 

After earning 17 offers, the metro Atlanta resident will head back to his native Texas after committing to SMU—who just hired noted quarterback guru Chad Morris as its head coach—over schools such as Houston, Illinois, Oregon State, Utah and Wake Forest. 

"I've seen most of the quarterbacks throughout the country, and he's neck and neck with every single one of them," said Quincy Avery, who is Moore's private quarterback coach in Atlanta and doubles as a counselor with Elite 11. "If I had to throw them out on a table, there’s not one guy who I would say, 'Hey, I want him over David.' Especially, just as a pure passer. He’s one of those guys that kind of changes the temperature in a room."

The 6'2", 170-pounder began his prep career in the metro Dallas area at Prosper High School, before transferring to local power Denton Guyer after his sophomore season.

However, shortly after spring practice, Moore and his family moved again. This time to the metro Atlanta area, where he landed at Milton High School in Alpharetta, Georgia.

"I transferred to another school, so I was getting recruited by schools in and around Texas, and when I transferred to Georgia, I kind of had to start the recruiting process all over again with a new set of schools," Moore told Bleacher Report. "It was a difficult thing for me."

But after standout displays at both the Orlando and Atlanta Nike Opening Regional camps, the current 3-star passer is on the cusp of shooting up the rankings. 

For Moore and those who have worked with him, it's a moment that has been long overdue.

"He may not be getting the attention that those kids are getting, and he understands he can't control that," says Kevin Murray, a quarterback coach in the Dallas area who has worked with Moore since he was in middle school. "What he can control is that when he's on the field, he can control his performance. I think he's done a pretty good job of doing that." 

Murray, whose son Kyler was a 5-star quarterback in the 2015 class and signed with Texas A&M in February, said he's "always had an inclination" that Moore would eventually reach a point where his enormous potential would come to light.

Murray, himself a former star passer for the Aggies, notes that he still communicates with Moore frequently. He said that David has always been gifted from a talent standpoint, but it was a matter of maturing into a leader and a student of the game. Luckily, those areas are where Moore has made the biggest strides in his game.

"I always liked his upside," Murray said. "There has always been something about him that intrigued me. The talent was there from the standpoint of just being a spinner of the football. Once that mind starts to control the body and not the other way around, I feel like we would have something here. It's just a matter of being patient with him."

Now that Moore has settled into his post at Milton, that patience is finally starting to pay off. 

As fate would have it, UAB was the first school to offer Moore back in July 2014. But when the school's football program folded later that year, Moore was back to square one. 

"After that happened, I was wondering if I would have to go to Division II," Moore said. 

Instead, he kept his focus on the task at hand of delivering his best performance on the field. 

Following this past season, the interest in Moore began to grow. Marshall coaches came by his school to watch him throw, and they offered him on the spot.

According to Moore, Oregon State head coach Gary Andersen called to offer him his first day on the job after leaving his post at Wisconsin.

Since then, he's added more than 10 offers. 

"I do carry myself with a chip on my shoulder because I go to these events and see these highly touted recruits that have the biggest offers," Moore said. "I don't have any of those things. I feel like that I compete just as good as those guys or better than them. That's just my mindset."

It's almost fitting that Moore will begin his college journey with Morris—a legend in the Texas high school coaching ranks who helped Tajh Boyd to a record-breaking career at Clemson and recruited current Tigers Heisman-hopeful quarterback DeShaun Watson.

Even with Moore now in the fold, Morris' biggest challenge may be to keep him committed until next February if bigger schools come calling given the recent dominoes that have fallen at the quarterback position. 

Moore took every rep at the Orlando and Atlanta Nike Opening Regional camps as if he had a point to prove.

For him, that meant getting directly in line behind more well-known passers such as the 5-star Malik Henry and 4-stars such as Jawon Pass, Feleipe Franks and Ervin Barrett and executing as if he was the player carrying the hype prior to those events.

After watching him throw at these camps, it is evident that the gap between Moore and passers already pegged as the nation's elite is small at best, and it may be disintegrating by the second.

His performance certainly didn't surprise Avery.

"He kind of had a rough situation, so I feel like now, he's a very competitive person, so he takes every opportunity and every rep as a chance to kind of show everybody that he should be one of those guys with 30 offers," Avery said. "I feel like his competitive demeanor is second to none."

Moore displayed a quick release and was accurate despite suffering a slight tear in his patella tendon during the Orlando camp and playing through inclement weather conditions in Atlanta.

"He has the ability to do some things with the football throwing-wise that not many other kids across the country have the ability to do," Avery said.

Moore notes that while some people will label him as a dual-threat quarterback, he prefers to do his damage from the pocket.

Both Murray and Avery note that Moore has skills in his arsenal that are hard to teach and rare among quarterbacks at the prep level. 

"He keeps his poise when he's in the pocket," Murray said. "He has the ability to anticipate and throw guys open. He sits in there now and lets things develop downfield, and he's starting to learn anticipating and throwing guys open and not holding the ball. That skill set translates well to the next level."

SMU may be the beneficiary of his topsy-turvy prep career, but the people who have worked with him feel that it's only a matter of time before college football's elite come knocking on the doors of the Moore residence.

"He's a sleeper, no question about it," Murray said. "David is a big-time sleeper. He's where he's at right now. This is out of his control, but I believe if he would still be here in Texas in DFW, I think that he would be rated a little higher."

Sanjay Kirpalani is a National Recruiting Analyst for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes obtained firsthand and all recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports.